suraj.sun writes: New street-level imaging software developed by Microsoft could help people find locations more quickly on the Web. The software could also leave new space for online advertising.

Services like Google Street View and Bing Streetside instantly teleport Web surfers to any street corner from Tucson to Tokyo. However, the panoramic photos these services offer provide only a limited perspective. You can't travel smoothly down a street. Instead, you have to jump from one panoramic "bubble" to the next--not the ideal way to identify a specific address or explore a new neighborhood.

"Today's services plunk you down inside a bubble in a particular location," says Michael Cohen, a senior scientist at Microsoft Research. "[Street Slide] helps you actually navigate using street- side imagery." Cohen developed Street Slide with colleagues at Microsoft; the group's work will be presented at the SIGGRAPH 2010 computer graphics conference in Los Angeles later this week.